GPs can be supported by assistants: report

Physician assistants should be trained to work with GPs in rural and remote Australia and pharmacists given a greater role in primary care, to boost health treatment in neglected parts of the country.

The Grattan Institute think tank has called on federal and state governments to spend $30 million a year in the seven worst performing rural and remote areas lagging behind metropolitan areas for health services access.

The institute has compared GP rates across Australia and found parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and South East Queensland boast more than 100 doctors per 100,000 people, while some regions had less than 80.

Health program director at the Grattan Institute, Stephen Duckett, said while access to GPs had increased in major regional centres, areas like the Pilbara and Northern Territory had fallen behind.

Central and North West Queensland, the Midwest Goldfields of WA, New England, Southern NSW and South West WA are the other Medicare Local regions focused on in the study.

The Grattan Institute proposes setting a target to increase GP numbers to 84 per 100,000 people in five years in those seven regions.

To do this, pharmacists and physician assistants could focus on less complex cases - which make up about 20 per cent of GP visits - such as common colds and vaccinations.

"About four or five per cent of what GPs do involves immunisations," Dr Duckett said.

"Why don't we get pharmacists to be involved in immunisations too, so that people don't need to go to a doctor for an immunisation?"

Dr Duckett also suggests pharmacists be allowed to approve repeat prescriptions, with agreement from GPs and patients, and become more involved in chronic disease management.

Meanwhile, the Grattan Institute also on Sunday called for 101 physician assistants to be trained at a cost of $26 million, to work in the seven nominated regions.

Based on trials in Queensland and South Australia, the assistants would work with GPs, and would be bulk billed to address low access rates in remote areas.

"We're suggesting we should be looking at physician assistants to work with GPs, to be employed by GPs, to take on some of the load of the general practitioner," he said.

Dr Duckett scotched the suggestion that the proposed changes would mean a lesser quality of service in those areas, saying an evaluation of the Queensland physician assistants trial had found patients were happy with the arrangements.

"What we've also built into our system is that physician assistants generally can only practice under the delegation of a doctor, and we've built in that 10 per cent of the GP's time would be spent in supervision of the physician assistant," he said.

"So we've been very careful that this is not going to reduce quality."

The Grattan Institute estimates that $30 million would be saved in hospital costs each year by increasing GP numbers to 84 per 100,000 in the seven areas.